ThisYester-Day in Washington Baseball History...
(The Continuing Attempt To Educate A Montreal Fan About DC Baseball History...)
On September 21, 1961, the second Washington Senators played the franchise's last game in DC's Griffith Stadium before moving to District of Columbia Stadium at 2400 East Capitol Street Southeast, (which would later be renamed RFK Stadium in 1969). The final Senators' game in Griffith Stadium was played in front of 1,498 fans, which is surprising considering the "Senators" were back in town, only now they were known as the Minnesota Twins, it's just that in the box score they looked an awful lot like the Washington Senators team that had finished the 1960 season 73-81, good enough for 5th in the American League...
...And now, there was Twins' first baseman, Harmon Killibrew, who hit .288 with 46 HR's and 122 RBI's in '61, just a year after the '60 Senators' first baseman Harmon Killibrew had hit .276 with 37 homers and 80 runs batted in for DC...and there was DC left fielder Jim Lemon in left for Minnesota batting .269 on the season while blasting 38 HR's out of the yard and driving 100 runs across the plate...and on the mound in '61, Pedro Ramos, Camillo Pascual, Jack Kralic and Jim Kaat anchored the Twins' rotation as they had done for the Senators the previous season in DC...
...The DC-based team hosting the Senators/Twins in the last game at Griffith Stadium in late September, were the 1961 Second-Senators, (awarded to the District as an expansion franchise the same year that the Los Angeles Angels entered the Major Leagues), and comprised of players plucked from rosters around the league in the 1960 expansion draft...like 38-year-old right fielder Gene Woodling who had hit .283 in 1960 with the Orioles, or the Pirates' pitcher Bennie Daniels, who was (1-3) on the '60 season with Pittsburgh, and a combined (8-16) since having debuted in the Majors back in 1957.
While Woodling hit .313 in '61 as an inaugural Second-Senator, and Daniels had a break out year his first year with Washington, posting a 3.44 ERA and a (12-11) record to lead the team in wins and tie for the lead in innings pitched (with right-handed starter Joe McClain, who had originally been signed by the Cardinals only to be sold for $100 dollars to the American Association's Charleston team before the Senators selected him in the expansion draft), the '61 Senators as a team, lost to the Twins that day, 6-3, in the last Senators' game ever at Griffith Stadium, to drop DC's record to 56-96 on the '61 season, which would end eight games later with the Second-Senators 61-100 overall.
In that final game at Griffith Stadium, on September 21, 1961, Twins' starter Jack Kralic beat the Second-Senators' pitcher Bennie Daniels...Minnesota first baseman Harmon Killibrew hit the last triple the park would see, while Second-Senators' first baseman Marion Sylvester "Bud" Zipfel hit Griffith Stadium's last double...the last HR in Griffith Stadium you ask? That was hit five days earlier by Kansas City Athletics' catcher Billy Brian, who took DC starter Hector Maestri out of Griffith Stadium's field of play for the field's final four-bagger.
Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965, and according to the park's wikipedia site, the University Hospital now stands where the Original and the Second-Senators once played...
